a life on repeat
by lauren lachrymose
Summary: From a sweltering secret, to a not-quite-poet's muse — Drabbles; various pairings.


**note; **These are snippets of things I have never finished and/or liked enough to show to the world. That's the trouble with perfectionist writers -- we're never pleased with the words we pen. Ugh. Sleep-deprived ramble aside, here you are. A plethora of drabbles to choose from.

* * *

**LOCK AND KEY.  
**_when angels love what devils do.  
_**riku/sora.**

Even after the light has shone and won, they meet in shadows still. Behind bleachers and buildings, inside closets and cars. Teeth clench together in muffled moans of the sort of darkness they had been sent to cast away; breaths hitch and rise and fall. It isn't love -- it isn't pure -- and it definitely isn't _good_. So they hide themselves with keys that do nothing but silence, lies locked in drawers kept still and safe.

(Because even heroes keep secrets sometimes.)

- - -

**BRUISED GHOSTS.  
**_pretty boy, eat your (pseudo)heart out.  
_**axel&riku.**

He's more machine than human now; all shadow and sneer and bone-chilling-cold. All that remains of innocence lies tucked behind a darkened cloth, because even the white of his hair has been tainted by the colorless blood that writhes down his hands in rivers.

He fights with Roxas more times than necessary -- too many for Axel to count. The older of the three doesn't even pretend to try and stop them anymore. But every once in a while he _does _hold the blonde's arms back, because it would be a shame to mess up that beautiful face.

Or so he thinks (_with a smirk_), before the kid fights his best friend, who doesn't come back.

And this castle that ticktickticks its way into its god damn namesake is no place for men with grudges to hold.

- - -

**STORYBOOK ALLUSIONS.  
**_another lovely girl of poet's pen that he could never seem to read.  
_**seifer/aerith.**

The tale unfurls slowly on a warm summer's day (because really, is there any other kind in a town like this one?). Sweat runs down his shoulder to the crook of his arm as he sees her, sitting in a modest type of dress that seems too stifling to wear. Her eyes are smiling at the spiky-haired kid and those three dorky lamers, and her hands are clasped gently in her lap as though in a prayer of their own.

She's beautiful.

He can't help but notice that, too.

If Seifer happened to be one of those mushy poetic types, he might compare her to something radiant and ethereal, like one of those sonnets that his English teacher made him memorize. Maybe his heart would melt a little, and maybe -- just _maybe -- _he'd crack a genuine grin.

But Seifer isn't one of those people, so he ignores the feel of his heart beating its way up to his throat, and marches away like he owns the entire freaking world.

The ending remains unwritten.

- - -

**CHEAP PERFUME.  
**_her mouth tastes like lipstick and two bottles of wine.  
_**yuffie/kairi.**

The lights go down and so does her skirt, because as of right now, she's too drunk to care.

Music pulses in her veins and her mind swims with excess alcohol and she's pretty sure her shirt is on the floor, because she can see the mascara and red wine stains. Something flashes by the bed, and Kairi _thinks _that Sora might be calling her to find out where she is, but Yuffie straddles her hips and her brain goes blank. There's nothing but rhythm and beat and sweet, erratic gasps that mix into the melody.

How far she is from that tiny girl in pink with the innocent eyes and the crown of sandcastles.

Now the hands that held promises grip dark strands of hair, and those innocent eyes roll backward until all they see are stars.

(who will be the princess now?)

- - -

**HIPBONES AND COFFEE.  
**_doodles in margins of notebooks that tear.  
_**olette, kairi, & selphie. **

"God, I had the _worst _hangover yesterday," a girl named Selphie groans, adjusting the cherry red tights on her legs that had become her recent trademark. "Remind me never to go to one of Riku's parties on a school night again."

At this, Kairi giggles into her hot chocolate (disguised as decaf, to make her look more mature). "Yeah, right. That's what you said _last _time."

Selphie pulls her face into a perfect pout and pushes her hair behind her ears. "Well, maybe if Riku would stop being such a - "

"Hottie?" Olette suggests, which earns her a soft whack over the head, cushioned slightly by her wool-knit hat.

The world laughs with them as they dissolve into giggles, spilling overpriced drinks onto pages of homework that was due the day before. Life is easy breezy 'round these parts, if you keep a blind eye to the grime-covered alleyways and keep a deaf ear to the hum of squatters singing for cash.

Yeah. Life is swell.


End file.
